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President impose 


SPEECH 


OF 


v*. 


HENRY CHAMPION DEMING, 

OF CONNECTICUT, 


ON THE 

PRESIDENT’S PLAN FOR STATE RENOVATION. 


DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE, FEBRUARY 27, 18W. 


The House being in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union— 
Mr. DEMING eaid: 

Mr. Chairman: I was induced to seek the floor when the House was last in 
Committee upon the present subject, because the two speeches to which I had 
listened upon the President’s message paid but a passing glance to what is to 
me its most important and most memorable feature; I mean its plan of State 
renovation. As it is the first distinct intimation from an authoritative source 
that the war is not to be everlasting, and that States may yet be restored, and 
that the rebuilding of our delapidated temple may yet be commenced, it de¬ 
serves to be received with fuller ceremonies and with ampler honors. It is at 
least refreshing to those who have feared that between State secession on the 
one hand, and State annihilation on the other, the Federal system would be 
ground to atoms, and not even territorial unity saved from the general wreck. 

In surveying the insurgent States we see at a glance that the elements which 
may create and inspire a new national life, and those which may corrupt and 
destroy it, are now both floundering together in the great vortex of civil war, 
and that, unless this “tumult and confusion all embroiled” is to last forever, 
these elements must be summoned to separate and recombine according to their 
respective natures, and assert their appropriate functions, and work out ener¬ 
getically their inheriting affinities of life unto life and death unto death. If 
the neutralizing of the elements of order was the only evil of this unnatural 
combination, it would most pathetically appeal to all that can be done by ex¬ 
ecutive interposition for its correction. But when we consider that by a stern 
implication of law, according to its authoritative expounders, all distinction 
between guilt and innocence in the insurgent States is also confounded, and 
that the loyal within the limits of this Civil War are subjected to the same 
pains, penalties and forfeitures with the disloyal, a case so'pitiable is stated 
that it should appeal to heaven and earth for relief. 

It is to this precise anomaly that the President’s plan addresses itself. It 
seeks to liberate order from this inert and paralyzing combination, to exempt 
innocence from being confounded with guilt, to separate loyalty from that un¬ 
wholesome contact which attaches to it the contagion, and subjects it, in the 
eye of the law, to the punishments of crime. 

* The task essayed is one of infinite difficulties and embarrassments, and no plan 
of restoration devised by finite wisdom could approximate toward completer 
at the outset, because the facts upon which it should be based are to a great - 
prospective, and because it must constantly modify and change itself r 
to new developments as it advances into the future. The Presider 
has wisely abstained from proposing anything but a transitional ’ 
to the exigencies of the hour, andUnerely bridging the chasm 
anarchy and State restoration. It professes on its face to b 
and not final or unchangeable; contenting itself with conimei 




2 



liverance, and by the necessities of the case restricting itself to such initiatory 
inodes and such tenative processes for renovating the insurgent States as our 
present imperfect knowledge of their condition and limited control over them 
permits him to employ. 

In attempting to solve this most perplexing of political problems at the pres¬ 
ent stage of its evolution, no statesman who relies upon merely human observa¬ 
tion and forethought could have adopted any different method. If you demand 
just now and here a thorough and perfect code and science of reconstruction, 
you must go to those who enjoy special revelations and inspired provision of 
the future. Mere men must grope their way when dealing with what is be¬ 
yond the limits of their knowledge, and it is by experimental processes alone 
that the race has succeeded in reaching the certainties of science and in tri¬ 
umphing-over the obstacles and mysteries which have beset it from infancy. 

While, therefore, in my judgment, the President’s plan is not beyond cavil, 
it is as complete and comprehensive as the intricacies of the subject and its pres¬ 
ent development will permit, and it possesses also the rare merit of being just 
to the Government, just to the insurgent States, and just to the slave; and it 
is to these three characteristics that I propose to restrict my remarks at present. 

1'. It is just to the Government. 

It surrenders no power or jurisdiction which the Government has ever 
claimed; it maintains every law which Congess has passed during the Civil 
War; it abandons no executive measures which the exigencies of that war' 
has evoked; it yields to armed envies none of their insolent demands, and to 
cold friends none of their temporizing expedients. If the insurgent States re¬ 
turn upon this plan, they will return acknowleding all the claims of the Gov¬ 
ernment which they made the pretext of revolt, and abjuring the claims 
which they propounded as their ultimatum of peace. They will return not 
only repudiating the glosses which for more than thirty years they have 
attempted to foist upon the Constitntion, but also their darling policy of 
extending and propagating slavery, to which, for a long period, they have at¬ 
tempted to make it subservient. They will return swearing allegiance to an 
organic law which has clarified itself by blood of all taint and stench of seces¬ 
sion, and which has deinonstated its self-existence by nearly devouring one half 
of its assumed creators. They will find that the fire which has swept over this 
District has not only burnt off slavery, but exterminated the root aud seed of it 
in the soil itself, and that since their Hegira from this Hall, the question upon 
which their Pryors, their Keitts, their Cobbs and Barksdales have so often con¬ 
vulsed it has been definitely settled, and that freedom is now securely seated 
upon our immeasurable Territories for the ilimitable future, and that the influ¬ 
ence of despised New England has planted the seed of free republics as near 
the setting sun as she is herself to his rising beams, so that when her choral 
hymn of rejoicing liberty sweeps over the Father of Waters, it can be caught, 
up by younger voices aud pealed in one continuous and unbroken strain 
until it is lost in the deep-toned anthem of the vast, peaceful sea.' They will 
find that their old feudal Bastile, strong and impregnable though it once seemed, 
has been undermined by our armies, and blown up aud scattered into frag¬ 
ments by those of their own kin who preferred the destruction of slavery to 
the death of the nation. They will find that military necessities, which they 
themselves created, have placed Springfield rifles into the hands of slaves, from 
which the same necessities had previously struck off the fetters, aod that a hun¬ 
dred thousand of these once groveling bondsmen, marshalled into,the armies 
of the Union and trained in military skill aud discipline, now defiantly hold the 
acres over which they were once tracked by bloodhounds, and domineer the 
plantations where they once toiled under the lash of the overseer. They will 
return finally with wonderfully increased respect for Uncle Sam, bowing obse¬ 
quiously to him, as a respectable living thing, self-sustained, and not sustained 
by their sufferance, with a power and will of his own, and breath in his nostrils 
not breathed into it by them, with a right hand strong enough to bruise and 
break, and with a face that will hereafter be a terror to all his enemies. 

2. The President’s plan is just to the insurgent States. 

And first, are those excluded from amnesty and pardon justly rightfully ex¬ 
cluded? This question deserves no nicety of discussion, for upon it there can 
be but little honest difference of opinion. The main conditions whiqh the 
President imposes upon those he restores to pardon are contained in an oath, 




3 


and the virtue.of an oath lies in its obligatory and binding force upon the con¬ 
science. He therefore justly excludes from pardon all who have demonstrated 
by manifest perjury their contempt of its obligations. The forsworn judges 
who have surrendered honor on our decorous bench for infamy on a judgment 
seat, reared by Civil War, the forsworn officers, military and naval, who have 
prostituted to the rebellion the skill in arms which they acquired as wards and 
beneficiaries of the Government, are justly and righteously debarred from am¬ 
nesty because they have not conscience or honor enough left to be grappled by 
an oath. 

Crimes differ in degree; and the experience of mankind establishes that while 
some can be safely pardoned without detriment to the common weal, there are 
others which cannot, go unpunished without its constant peril or its certain des¬ 
truction. The high civil and diplomatic magnates of this most unprovoked rebel¬ 
lion, the military Molochs whose rank entitles them to guilty pre eminence,,are 
left to lie unshrived, unaneled, in the pit they have digged for themselves, be¬ 
cause among the crimes pronounced inexpiable by the consenting voice of all 
the ages, is that of those arch rebels and arch-traitors who instigate and lead a 
civil war, the sum aud expressed essence of every crime. The society which 
tolerates such parracides cannot exist a moment in safety. Rome could enjoy 
no repose while Catiline lived. France was drenched in blood until Robes¬ 
pierre was guillotined Davis will convulse Secessia u3 soon as he is not al¬ 
lowed to reign, and if its bonds had been worth stealing, Floyd would have 
robbed it before he died. 

The miscreants who have violated the laws of war, and ostracized themselves 
from human sympathy by murdering and torturing disarmed and helpless 
prisoners of war, are just left to work out their own damnation; and why ? 
Because to forgive a Thug who maims aud murders in the name of chivalry 
would he an outrage upon civilization. 

Secondly. Are the terms imposed upon those included in the amnesty just and 
right? 

What are these terms? There are five of them: 1. An oath to sustain the 
Constitution. 2. An oath to sustain the Anti-Slavery legislation. 3. An oath 
to sustain the President’s proclamation. 4. Slave property is withheld in gen¬ 
eral restitution. 5 Propetty, where the rights of third parties have inter¬ 
vened, is also withheld. 

The committee will observe that the first three of these conditions are in the 
form of an oath. Now, i agree mainly with my friend from Kentucky, [Mr Yea- 
man,] who has spoken upon this question, when he says lhat great quarrels are 
settled by the' fortunes of war and by the domination of great ideas and prin- 
ciplts, rather than by the formality of taking oaths and recording them; and 
that restoration is attained when the ideas and the forces of the nation have 
prevailed over the ideas and the forces of secession and national disintegration. 
It appears to rne, however, that this is an explanation of the method by 
which social laws and influences, rather than political agencies, maj' reunite a 
divided society. The ideas and forces of which he speaks are embodied in hu¬ 
man beings who, at the present stage of our advance, must continue to be 
governed and directed by political administration and its appropriate machin¬ 
ery. Sociology must wait for many decades before its sublime speculations can 
be applied to practical affairs. In political parlance, the elements which he 
represents as struggling for preponderance are loyalty and disloyalty. An 
oath of allegiance may not be an infallible mode of discriminating between 
those who will faitbiully and siucely support a Government and those who will 
desert aud betray it; but who can at present propound a better lest? 1 can 
conceive of a stage in our future culmination when all the masks, disguises, and 
hypocrisies of mankind will be stripped off, and their most interior motions and 
impulses stand revealed. I can imagine that the inhabitants of eaith may yet 
become as perfect as the inhabitants of the higher spheres, who, according to 
clairvoyant philosophers, are incapable of deceit and cannot speak at all with¬ 
out speaking the truth. But in the nineteenth century, and with our present 
imperfect means of penetrating men’s real purposes, we must rely upon the 
old fashioned oath of allegiance as the best criterion of their rectitude or want 
of it. It is the test which has been used in Government since the morning stars 
sano- together; it was used in the construction of our present system, and must 
be used"in the reconstruction if we.are to commence the work of renovation 


4 


by separating the true from the false, the loyal from the disloyal, the wheat 
from the tares. 

It is objected to this plan that it pardons the rebel on condition of his doing 
a certain thing, and requires the loyal man to do the same thing before he can 
participate in a State government. The Supreme Court of the United States 
has unanimously decided that from the 13th day of July, 1861, the date of the 
approval of the non-intercourse act, there has been between the Government 
and the confederate States a civil territorial war; and it is laid down as a 
principle in the same momentous decision that “ the laws of war, whether the 
war be civil or inter gentes, conveit every citizen of a hostile State into a pub¬ 
lic enemy and treat him accordingly. “ From the outbreak of this rebellion to 
the present hour, on the Non-Intercourse Act, on the Confiscation Act, on the 
Conscription Act, on every vigorous and earnest measure of legislation the 
gentlemen on the other side of the House have importunately invoked the Con¬ 
stitution and the laws, and here they have them, in full measure and running 
over; law certain, but law inexorable, as it was in Shylock’s case ; law not ac¬ 
cording to the Solicitor of the War Department, but law according to the 
supreme arbiter of mooted constitutional questions. Since the adoption of the 
Constitution the court has devoted itself almost exclusively to the study and 
interpretation of its peace side, and out of it they have barely extracted power 
and authority enough for all emergencies of peace and for all the operations 
and enterprises of a tranquil society. When the judges shall have given to its 
war side one tithe of the attention and study which they have given to its 
peace side, they will discover power enough for all the emergencies of war ; 
power enough for self-defense, whether the Government it organizes is at¬ 
tacked in the guise of secession or of revolution ; power enough to inflict full 
and exemplary punishment upon all who assail it. whether they are seceders, 
rebels, traitors, or public enemies. The decision in the prize cases is the first 
fruit of these new studies, covering by its vast sweep all the war legislation 
that has been so severly criticised and so savagely rebuked. Before the 13th 
of July it might or might not have been, according to the judges, a -personal 
war. Before that time it might or might not have been that the only enemy 
the Government could recognize was the person engaged in the rebellion, as 
the opponents of the Administration have clamorously asserted, and that all 
others were peaceful citizens, entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizen¬ 
ship under the Constitution. But since the Non-Intercourse Act no such claim 
can be made, for the point is authoritatively settled by the agreement of all 
the judges that from that time the personal war became a civil territorial war, 
giving to the United States full belligerent rights against all the inhabitants of 
the rebellious districts, and converting them all, in the eye o( the law, into 
public enemies. 

It does not by any means follow^tht Lecause the rebels have forfeited all con¬ 
stitutional rights and constitutional guarantees, they have thereby absolved them¬ 
selves from constitutional obligation . They are “ none the less enemies because 
they are traitors,” says Judge Grier: and*he might have said that they have 
not ceased to be traitors because they are enemies. In other words, the Presi¬ 
dent may elect to pursue them either as enemies or traitors, by the Constitution 
or by the laws of war. If he elects to pursue them as traitors, he must pursue 
them in accordance with the constitutional definition of treason and by the 
mode and with the limitation it clearly indicates in the section devoted to that, 
crime. If he elects to pursue them as enemies, there is no limit and restraint 
upon his discretion but the laws of war. The Duke of Cumberland, when in 
1745 he subdued the Scotch rebels, could have tried them all at a drum-head 
court martial, or handed them over to the civil tribunals to be tried according 
to the laws of England defining treason. 

Here, then, you have it. It is “ so nominated in the bond,” that within that 
boundary “ marked by a line of bayonets,” every citizen, whatever his conduct, 
whether Union or rebel, loyal or disloyal, is a public enemy, and liable to be 
• treated as such. Now, is it not rather too late in the day to declare that all 
within that line do not.need pardon before they can be restored to the rights 
of citizenship which they have forfeited as public enemies? It is not, as "has 
been stated by some, a “superfluous bofon” which the President tenders to the 
loyal man, nor has he adroitly blended together the conditions of pardon with 
qualifications for citizenship. It was with the full knowledge and understand- 


o 


iijg of the effect and operation of this decision in the prize cases, and from his 
conviction that a man who had never swerved from his allegiance might be 
caught in the meshes of this legal implicaiton that induced the President to 
disregard the broad moral distinction between the two classes, and to extend 
his clemency to all who in legal contemplation were public euemies. In the 
very opening sentence of his proclamation he offers it to all who have “ directly 
or by implication” participated in the rebellion. 

Let me now for a moment examine more in detail the terms of the President's 
plan. In the first place he requires that all who accept his clemency shall 
swear “to henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution 
of the United States, and the Union thereunder.” That, this is a just and 
righteous demand from all who have “ directly or by implication ” participated 
in the rebellion, the most scrupulous and tender-hearted apologist for our “ way¬ 
ward sisters” will hardl}’ venture to deny. 

In the second place he requires from them an o ith to abide by and support 
all the Anti-Slavery legislation of Congress during the existing rebellion, so 
long and so far as it is not abrogated by the national Legislature nor declared 
void by a decision of the Supreme Court. Now, inasmuch as by the Constitu¬ 
tion itself, the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance of it are declared 
to be the supreme law of the laud, thoie is no great hardship in requiring both 
from the loyal and disloyal inhabitants of the insurgent States an oath to sup¬ 
port the supreme law of the land, so long as it continues to be valid and un¬ 
revoked. 

In the third place the President requires from the recipient of executive 
clemency an oath to sustain the proclamation emancipating slaves, so long and 
so far as it is not invalidated by supreme judicial decision. Whether the Pro¬ 
clamations were constitutional or not is not here the question, for this is waived 
by the essential qualification of the oath, and left where is must eventually go, 
to our supreme judicial tribunal. If the Proclamation is pronounced by the 
judges unconstitutional, the oath is void; if constitutional, it merely binds the 
conscience of the affirmant to sustain the Executive of the United States, in a 
time of grievous national peril, in the exercise of his legitimate powers 

In the fourth place the President’s plan withholds slaves in the general res¬ 
titution. 

And it is upon this point that in my judgment the most serious differences 
of opinion will arise. To those who hold that rebels who abjure the Constitu¬ 
tion and wage war for its destruction are entitled to all the rights which it 
guaranties, and can only be pursued by constitutional penalties, both the eman¬ 
cipation of slaves and the refusal to restore them will seein the greatest enor¬ 
mities. To those who hold that the inhabitants of the insurgent States have 
forfeited all their rights under the Constitution, and are public enemies in a 
state of war, with no rights but such as the law of nations accords to belliger¬ 
ents, the condition now under consideration will be regarded only as the inflic¬ 
tion of just and merited punishment. 

Round these conflicting theories, from the firing upon Sumter to the present 
hour, proposition and reply, assertion and rejoinder, have raged and stormed 
as when— 

“ From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 

Leaps the live thuuder.” 

It seems to me, however, as I have already stated, that the Supreme Court 
of the United States has closed the high debate and pronounced judgment to 
which we are all bound deferentially to bow. The judges have unanimously 
agreed in affirming that a civil war between the Government and the confede¬ 
rate States has existed for two years and a half, and that a civil war carries 
with it all the legal consequences of war. Now, what are these legal conse¬ 
quences? They are gathered together from Vattel, Phillimore, and Wheaton, 
and compendiously summed up in the opinion of Justice Nelsou, in the prize 
cases, 2 Black, 687 : 

“The legal consequenees resulting from a state of war between two countries at this day » 
are well understood, and will he found described in every approved work «.n the subject of 
international law. The, people, of the two countries become immediately the enemies of 
each other — all intercourse, commercial or otherwise, between them unlawful—all contracts 
existing at the commencement of the war suspended,and allmadeduringitsexisteuceutterly 
void. The insurance of enemies’ property, the drawing of hills of exchange or purchase on 
he enemies’ couutry, the remission of bills or money to it are illegal and void. Existing 
partnerships between citizens or subjects of the two countries are dissolved, and, in line, in- * 


6 


terdietion of trade and intercourse, direct or indirect, is absolute and complete by the 
mere force and effect of war itself. All the property of the people of the two countries 
on land or sea are subject to capture and confiscation by the adverse party as enemies' 1 
property , with certain qualifications as it respects property on land, (Brown rs United 
States, 8 Cranch, 110 ) All treaties between the belligerent parties are annulled. The ports 
of the respective countries may be blockaded, and letters of marque and reprisal granted 
as rights of war, and the law ol prizes as defined by the law of nations conies into full and 
complete operation, resulting from maritime captures, jure belli. War also effects a change 
in the mutual relations of all States or countries, not directly, as in the case of the belliger¬ 
ents, but immediately and indirectly, though they take no part in the contest, but remain 
neutral. 

“This great and pervading change in the existing condition of a country, and in the rela¬ 
tions of ad her citizens or subjects, external and internal, from a state of peace, is the imme¬ 
diate effect and result of a state of war. n 

If this be so if, in the language of the court, “all the property of the peo¬ 
ple of the two countries, on land and sea, are subject to confiscation and cap¬ 
ture by the adve. se part}’, as enemies property,” i do not see how the conclu¬ 
sion can be evaded that the slave property of the insurgent States was lawful 
spoil and prey of tfar, and that the. President, as Commander-in chief and sole, 
judge of military necessities, was authorized in taking the services of the slaves 
from their masters, in the only efficacious way it could be done, by an edict of 
emancipation. He found back of the heavy legions of armed rebels, back of 
■ the bayonets and artillery which, at Corinth, at Murfreesboro’, at Richmond, 
aimed at the ni'ion’s life, back of Lee and Jackson and Beauregard and Bragg 
and the whole multitudinous host, four million men pressed into the hated and 
loathsome business of feeding, clothing, and sustaining their enemies and ours. 
He found in the slave the bone and sinew and muscle of the social state that 
was hurling upon us dealh and destruction, the body of the grim Colossus that 
was clutching the nation's throat, the forage, the subsistence, the transporta¬ 
tion, the labor, he architect, the operative, the intrenching tool of the foe. 
To the slave it was due that a remorseless consciipt.ion could skin the land of 
white men, and drive all, from the “whining school boy” to the “lean and 
slippered pantaloon,” into the fighting ranks of the rebellion. And must the 
Commander-in Chief of the Federal Army withhold his hand from this im_ 
mense arsenal of strength and power and victory? What! riot break the bone 
not sever the sinew, notrend the muscle, not seize the subsistence, the wealth, 
the material, not t>-ar out the heart of the rebellion, when they were all at his 
mercy by the laws of war? What folly, what imbecility, what treachery to 
the people, what perfidy to the Government, would such a refusal imply ? Mil¬ 
itary necessity ! Why, at the time of the proclamation we were reeling and 
staggering under well-delivered and repeated blows. The elections were against 
us. The public sentiment of the world was cold and menacing. England 
stood ready to avenge the defeats and jealousies of aeentury by pouncing upon 
us in our weakness, and an alliance with the confederacy was a part of Napo- 
lean’s plans of transatlantic aggrandizement. IS'aoie the nation that was ever 
more severely pressed at home and abroad; name the instance in the tide of 
time where such a necessity was more paramount, when a measure was more 
unavoidable to save a realm from everlasting overthrow', on the one hand, and 
upon the other to secure for it a glory unsurpassed, a progress without end, a 
triumph of humanity, such as was never seen before. 

Fortunately for the country, fortunately for the world, the President was 
equal to the emergency; he did not refuse; he manumitted the slaves; and in 
doing this but followed the example of those master States who make the laws 
of war and give them authority. England has by three of her' military com¬ 
manders turned this formidable engine against us as an unquestioned martial 
right. France has freely distributed rescripts not only of emancipation but of 
enfranchisement, and Spain has added the weight of her authority to the same 
rule. W en in the South American republics hostile factions have dashed to¬ 
gether, they have no scruple of liberating slaves as a legitimate mode of crip¬ 
pling an antagonist; and it will be hard to rind a modern 'war carried on in 
territories of slavery in which emancipation has not been used as a legitimate 
« belligerent right, and used without protest. As property, it was the duty of 
the President to confiscate them by the only effectual mode; as persons in 
duress, unwillingly contributing to the strength and resources of* the enemy, it 
was his duty to break up the duress by the only effectual mode . as loyal sub¬ 
jects panting to rush to the defense of their imperiled country, it was his duty 
.to remove all restraint from the free exercise of their volition|by the only effec- 


7 


tual mode ; a? disloyal subjects rendering voluntary service to their masters, it 
was iiis duty to take lhat service by the only effectual niede. 

3. Just to the slave. * , 

Shall these once slaves but now freemen be remanded back to bondage? 
No: ‘‘personal property once forfeited is always forfeited.” No: slaves once 
legally tree are always free. No, no ; thrice no. by the allies of our fathers, 
by the altar of our God! The “chosen curses,” aud the “hidden thunder in 
the stores of heaven” will forbid the rendition: a crime to them, a malediction 
to their masters, a shame to us, and a disgrace to the age. If jjnese children of 
wrong and oppression are the lawful spoil of our victorious arms, give up to 
the enemy your proudest national memorials—the sword of Washington, the 
staff of Franklin; that time-worn but immortal parchment which first authori¬ 
tatively published your independence to the world—give up to him the blood¬ 
stained flags and trophies which, upon the bristling crest of battle, our heroic 
defenders have wrenched from his desperate grasp; give up to Him this Capitol 
itself, and throw' at his feet the Presidents head, before you give up the most 
abject of these bondsmen disinthralled; for in surrendering them you will 
squander one of those priceless moments, big with the future, worth more than 
a whole generation of either bond or free, the rare and pregnant occasion placed 
in your hand by the fortune of war wiping forever African slavery from the 
American continent. 

If this deliverance is ever vouchsafed, then shall we be purged for ever of 
the sole source of our weakness and deissension iu the past; then will pass 
away forever the sole cloud that threatens the glory of our future; then will 
the American Union be transfigured into a more erect and shining presence, 
and tread with firm footsteps a loftier plane, and cherish nobler theories, and 
carry its head nearer the stars; then will it be no profanation to wed Its 
redeemed and unpolluted name to that of immortal Liberty; then Liberty and 
Union will go on, hand in had, and, under a holier inspiration and with more 
benign and blessed auspices, w ill revive their grand mission of peacefully ac¬ 
quiring and peacefully incorporating contiguous territories and peacefully as¬ 
similating their inhabitants; then from the Orient to the Occident., from the 
flowery shores of the great Southern Gulf to the frozen barriers of the great 
northern Bay, will they unite in spreading a civilization, not intertwined with 
slavery, but purged of its contamination, a civilization which means universal 
emancipation, universal enfranchisement, universal brotherhood; then shall we 
have done for the United States what Richelieu is said to have done for France: 

‘ 4 He fouud France rent asunder,” 

* * * * * * 

“ Brawls festering into rebellion, and weak laws 

, Rotting aw;iy with rust in antique sheatlis. 

He re-created France ; and from the ashes , 

Of the old feudal and decrepit carcass, 

Civilizat on , on her luminous wings, 

Soared, Bhoenix-like, to Jove . v 

Despair not, then, soldiers, statesmen, citizens, women, who are fighting ener¬ 
getically for a nation's life. The cloud which now shuts down before your vision 
will yet disclose its silver lining. Peace shall be born of war, and out of choaa 
order shall yet emerge. We shall dwell together in harmony, and but one 
nation shall inhabit our sea-girt borders. We seem sailing along the land, 
hearing the ripple that breaks upon the shore, where our recreated and regen¬ 
erated Republic, after it has passed through this fiery furnace ot war, these 
gates of death, shall be permanently installed. We shall yet tread its meadows 
and pastures green, trade in its marts, live in its palaces, worship in its temples, 
and legislate in its Capitol. Ttie providence of God moves through great cycles 
of time. If we could only attain a point in the future that commands a suffi¬ 
ciently comprehensive retrospect, all the mysteries of our historic evolution 
would unfold their meaning We should learn why our journey to this “more 

E erfect Union ” was so long and weaiisome; why the morn was t-o long in 
reaking; why diverse laces were at the outlet planted on tins continent; 
why we struggled through Indian, Spanish, French, and English wars to poli¬ 
tical independence; why just as the new-born nation was “hardening into the 
bone of manhood” it was suffered to divide itself into hostile armies, that have 
crossed each other’s track, and intersected and rushed ami crashed >«»g ther, as 
the planets would, if the forces which hold them in their orbius were once 


8 


suspended; why religion and knowledge and law were too feeble to bind toge¬ 
ther repelant societies; why bigotry and intolerance were but half-crucified in 
our best men; why slavery was ever generated; why it did not die in the 
womb, and why it so long impeded the march of the American people to na¬ 
tional unity and domestic tranquility. 


SPEECHES'* AND DOCUMENTS FOR DISTRIBUTION BY 
, THE UNION CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE. 

Abraham Lincoln—“Slavery and its issues indicated by his Speeches, Let¬ 
ters, Messages, and Proclamations. 

Hon. Isaac N. Arnold—“ Reconstruction; Liberty the corner-stone and Lin¬ 
coln the architect.” 16 pp. ; $2 per hundred. 

Hon. M. Russell Thayer—“ Reconstruction of Rebel States.” 16 pp. ; $2 per 
100 . 

Hon. James F. Wilson—“A Free Constitution.” 16 pp. ; $2 per hundred. 

Hon. Godlove S. Orth—“ The Expulsion of Long.” 8 pp.; $1 per 100. 

Hon. H. Winter Davis—*• The Expulsion of Long.” 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 

Hon. Henry C. Deming—“ State Renovation.” 8 pp.; $1 per 100* 

Hon. James A. Garfield—“ Confiscation of Rebel Property.” 8 pp ; $1 per 

100 . 

Hon. William D. Kelley—“Freedmen’s Affairs.” 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 

Hon. Green Clay Smith—“ Confiscation of Rebel Property.” 8 pp. ; $1 per 

100 . 

Hon. D. W. Gooch—“Secession and Reconstruction.” 8 pp.; $1 per 100. 

Hon. R. C. Scheuck—“No Compromise with Treason.” 8 pp.; $1 per 100. 

Hon. Lyman Trumbull—“A Free Constitution.” 8 pp.; $1 per 100. 

Hon. Charles Sumner—“Universal Emancipation, withont Compensation.” 
16 pp.; $2 per 100. 

Hon. James Harlan—“Title to Property in Slaves.” 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 

Hon. Daniel Clark—“ Amendment to Constitution.” 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 

Hon. John C. Ten Eyck—“ Reconstruction in the States.” 8 pp • $1 per 

100 . * 

Hon. Reverdy Johnson—“Amendment to Constitution.” 16 pp * $2 per 

100. ’ r 

Hon. J. D. Defrees—“Thoughts for Honest Democrats.” 

Biographical sketch of Andrew Johnson, candidate for the Vice Presidency. 
16 pp- ; 82 per 100. 

Hon. J. D. Defrees—“The War Commenced by the Rebels.” 16 pp • o per 

100 . ’ y 

Numerous Speeches and Documents not included in the foregoing will be 
published for distribution, and persons willing to trust the discretion of the 
Committee can remit their orders with the money, and have, them filled with 
the utmost promptitude, and with the best judgment as to price and adapta¬ 
tion to the locality where the speeches are to be sent. 1 


Printed by L. Towers for the Union Congressional Committee. 


H ^04 79 






















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